At the end of the day, once you've understood the meaning of life - even foretelling the future becomes somewhat of a cheap parlour trick. This is what all occult and formulaic arts dream to achieve, right? At their highest points of mastery. The end of all great astrologers, for example - is to become glorified fortune tellers. As the end of every great facereader is to become a therapist with a funny fetish. It's silly if not comical, if not ironic, if not righteous and just. Knowledge can certainly be a curse as well. The learned man likes to pretend, and theorise, and philosophize. His fate lies in unavoidable guesswork. The magician muses that the knowledge must lead to some ever-expanding logical conclusion. All the signs are there, yet the puzzle is never solved, so learning is never finished. The moment he thinks he's cornered it all into some sort of box, a new variable makes itself known - and the chase for proof is thus renewed, over and over again. But the mystic knows what the magician does not. Something simple yet no less sublime. He may not know the cheering of crowds and the clamour of excited young women, but, in his total lack of deliberation - in his audacity to leave the final page unturned - he is granted a great and quiet secret. And the secret is such: The cost of knowing what happens is not knowing *why* it happens. Now, as I become the magician (seeing as I will predict the magician's answer to this secret truth), give me a dramatic pause. Drum roll, the curtains come out. Because I would predict that the magician's reply will always be the same one question: "Why?" Because all the magician knows is to look for proof in logic. "Why" is inaccessible to him without explanation and proof. It is the one nagging question that serves as his unlikely companion throughout his life, it never leaves his side. And so his chase of determinism has made him unable to think and see beyond it. He knows what will occur, he might even see it in full clarity as he studies the delicate movements of all the celestial bodies, yet does not have the vision to see through it - and the faith and wisdom to be granted the knowing of why it is permitted to occur at all. This is the fate of a curious mind - to remain ever curious. Until it allows itself to *not know* and find peace within that not knowing. For not knowing is the key and portal-gate to knowledge that lies beyond all knowledge. Beyond itself. Therefore, if you have to ask why it is so - then you know where you stand with the work. Therefore also, instead of asking "why", ask instead, perhaps, why you are asking at all. ![[Pasted image 20260216115908.png]]